Two men have been jailed after being caught with 86kg of cannabis worth an estimated three quarters of a million pounds.
Eneo Zace, 28, of no fixed address, and Patrick Duffy, 67, both of Lentworth Drive, Walkden, pleaded guilty to supplying cannabis at Manchester Crown Court, Crown Square.
On Thursday 19 May 2016, Zace was jailed for three years and four months and Duffy was jailed for four years and eight months.
The court heard how officers from the Serious and Organised Crime Unit identified that the men had been transporting cannabis in the back of a van filled with more than 1000 lettuces.
Officers believe the men had concealed the cannabis underneath the lettuces in the back of the van, in a bid to hide the drugs as they transported it between addresses.
Once inside the garage, the cannabis – which was vacuum-packed in one kilogram packages and labelled with names like ‘AK 47’, ‘Critical Widow’ and ‘Chanel Plus X’ – was stored in large, black holdalls.
© Greater Manchester Police
It was one of these holdalls that Zace carried to a VW Passat on Thursday 17 December 2015.
A search of the vehicle revealed a holdall filled with around 15kg of the vacuum-packed cannabis, and a set of keys.
Those keys opened the garage of the address in Walkden, where officers found another 71kg of the drug packed and ready to be transported, along with a vacuum-packing machine and empty plastic bags.
The total street value of the drugs seized was estimated to be around £737,000.
Detective Constable Mark Ellis, of the Serious and Organised Crime Group, said: “As the judge remarked at the sentencing, Duffy and Zace were drug dealers on a ‘professional and commercial scale’.
“The sheer volumes of cannabis, the professional packing equipment and the way they transported the drugs concealed underneath the vegetables in the back of a van demonstrates that these men were experienced drug dealers who had gone to great lengths to evade capture.
“Thankfully our officers are determined to ensure drug dealers such as this pair pay the price for their criminality, and with the sentences they have received today they have done exactly that.
“I would like to point out at this point that though our officers work incredibly hard to tackle drug dealing in our city, our communities also play a key role in the fight against criminality.”
